Book Reveals Ninja Way of War, From Throwing Stars to ‘Hearts and Minds’

Were Japan’s legendary ninjas the world’s first Special Forces? Seems so, based on the vignettes in the snappy new nonfiction book Ninja Attack!, written by husband-and-wife team Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt, with illustrations by Yutaka Kondo. Like today’s commandos, Japan’s ninjas were skilled warriors, clever tacticians and, most importantly, subtle when they needed to be and culturally savvy all the time.

Forget the black masks, throwing stars and obscure martial arts of Hollywood ninjas, the authors stress. The real deal — a class of stealthy fighters that dominated Japanese warfare for a thousand years starting in the 7th century — would do “whatever it takes to get the job done.” If ninjas were still around today, “it’s hard to imagine them sticking with a vintage sword and chainmail instead of, say, an assault rifle and a bulletproof vest.”

Ninjas, Yoda and Alt write, “were, in fact, at the forefront of the military technology of their day.” Their weapons of choice ranged from wearable “claws” called Teko-kagi to the blade-on-a-chain Kusari-gama and, yes, sometimes Shuriken throwing stars that “likely served … as fairly close-range nuisance weapons” rather than the “weapons of silent death” you see in movies.

More to the point, ninjas were on the cutting edge of science and the military arts.

“They were keen observers of the world around them,” the authors explain. “Their techniques span a wide variety of disciplines, from natural sciences such as biology, chemistry and meteorology to psychology.” Ninjas devised smoke bombs for concealment, climbing tactics for scaling fortress walls and methods of improving their vision by alternating their focus between dark and bright patches.

And they studied the people around them in order to find pressure points in human systems, just like today’s culturally adept Special Force do. Take Hasegawa Heizo, who in the mid-18th century took charge of a government anti-crime organization that Yoda and Alt describe as a mix of “the FBI, a SWAT team, and a paramilitary special-forces crew.” The group’s task: to clean out the crime-ridden Edo Shogunate.

Heizo won the hearts and minds of locals by handing out free rice: Their tips let him get the drop on the bad guys. Heizo kicked ass, when required, with his signature Jutte sword. But he preferred to rehabilitate captured criminals in correctional facilities of his own design. After nine years and more than 200 arrests, Heizo succeeded in “restoring the streets to something resembling order.” He then promptly fell dead from “overwork.”

Successes like Heizo’s ironically contributed to the ninjas’ decline. They proved “so good at their work that they grew into a direct threat to the warlords” that sponsored them. In the 16th century, a powerful warlord swept through ninja territory, wiping out everything in his path and shattering the ninja clans forever.

If the ninjas were precursors to today’s Special Forces, they reached peaks of power and influence that our 21st-century commandos can only dream of. In Ninja Attack!, Yoda, Alt and Kondodepict these brilliant, fearsome fighters with brevity, wit and style.

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